Jewish school raid ends with 6 deaths

Joel Greenberg. Special to the TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Two Palestinian gunmen burst into the dining hall of a yeshiva at a Jewish settlement near Hebron on Friday night and opened fire at students gathered for a Sabbath meal, killing four people and wounding eight others, the army said.

Soldiers who rushed to the scene killed one of the gunmen. The second attacker, who wore an Israeli army uniform and carried an M-16 assault rifle, was tracked down and fatally shot by troops, the army said.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying the attack was in response to the slaying of one of its leaders in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers Thursday.

Militants had vowed to strike back after Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in the West Bank and one in the Gaza Strip in several raids and clashes Wednesday night and Thursday.

In a busy bar district in downtown Jerusalem early Saturday, an explosion wounded a Palestinian trying to set off a car bomb. No other casualties were reported.

The violence broke a lull in Palestinian attacks on Israelis that had lasted more than a month.

Reports from the settlement of Otniel, south of Hebron, said two gunmen slipped into the community, which is not surrounded by a fence, went to the yeshiva, or religious school, and entered the dining hall kitchen. The attackers sprayed the room with gunfire, aiming at students who had gathered for the Sabbath meal.

The attack killed four people and wounded eight others before soldiers responded to the scene, killing one of the assailants, an army spokesman said.

The second gunman fled south toward the town of Dahiriya and was killed later in a firefight with soldiers, the spokesman added. Three soldiers were lightly wounded in the confrontation.

Palestinians in Hebron reported that after the shooting, Jewish settlers slashed the tires and smashed the windshields of Arab-owned cars in one neighborhood.

Ramadan Shallah, the leader of Islamic Jihad, said his group's armed wing had carried out the attack in Otniel. Speaking from Damascus, Syria, on the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, he said the shooting was "retaliation for the Israeli occupation forces' assassination of Hamza Abu Rub."

Rub was a leader in his organization who was killed by Israeli troops Thursday in the West Bank town of Kabatiya.

Shallah said the attack showed that "the Palestinians are insisting on continuing the struggle for the liberation of all of Palestine."

Palestinian factions recently held talks in Cairo on halting the bombings and shootings inside Israel, although the proposal was not expected to apply to attacks on Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Despite the truce discussions, the leader of the militant Islamic group Hamas, Sheik Ahmad Yassin, indicated Friday that attacks inside Israel would continue.

"Resistance will move forward, jihad will continue and martyrdom operations will continue until the full liberation of Palestine," he said at a rally in the Gaza Strip.

The car-bombing attempt in Jerusalem was not immediately claimed by any militant group. After the explosion near the entrance to the downtown bar, police arrested a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who had been slightly injured in the blast.

Jerusalem police chief Micky Levy said that the Palestinian was a former bar employee and that he had planned to set off the car bomb by igniting two cooking-gas canisters in the vehicle.

However, only one exploded, setting the vehicle on fire and causing minor damage to the business, he said.